What to Do in Rio in September 2026: Rock in Rio, the First Semana de Arte and Nine Free Things
Rio de Janeiro · Culture
Seven nights of Rock in Rio, a national holiday that shuts the city centre, the first Semana de Arte, opera at the Municipal, and nine things you can walk into for nothing.
RIO DE JANEIRO — There is a great deal to do in Rio in September, and very little of it is written down anywhere in English. This guide is the first of a monthly selection for people who live here rather than visit: what is on, where, when, what it costs, and why it might be worth crossing the city for. Nine of the entries below are free.
Two dates shape Rio in September. Rock in Rio takes seven nights across two weekends and moves a large part of the city west to Barra. And Monday 7 September is a national holiday that closes Avenida Presidente Vargas — the same day Elton John plays. Plan accordingly.
Rock in Rio: seven nights, two weekends
4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 13 September · gates 2pm, music to 3am
Rock in Rio 2026
Cidade do Rock, Parque Olímpico, Av. Embaixador Abelardo Bueno, Barra da Tijuca · Tickets through Ticketmaster only · 16+
The single biggest thing happening in Rio in September: 45 international acts, 15 of them playing nowhere else on the tour. 4 September: Foo Fighters, Rise Against, The Hives, Nova Twins. 5th: Avenged Sevenfold, Bring Me the Horizon, Machine Gun Kelly, Sepultura. 6th: Calvin Harris, Black Eyed Peas, Nelly and Barão Vermelho in their original line-up. 7th: Elton John, Gilberto Gil, Jon Batiste, and Luísa Sonza with Roberto Menescal. 11th: Stray Kids. 12th: Maroon 5. 13th: twenty one pilots.
Practical notes
Getting in and out
Cidade do Rock, Barra da Tijuca · —
Gates open at 2pm. Last entry is at midnight, and the programme runs until 3am. Therefore, work out the journey home before you go: taxis at 3am in Barra are their own event. Under-16s need a legal guardian and under-fives are not admitted at all. Tickets are sold exclusively through Ticketmaster; anything offered anywhere else is not a ticket.
Friday 4 September
Friday 4 September, 8pm
Hélder Viana — bossa nova, with Jane Duboc
Vinícius Show Bar, Ipanema · Price from the venue
Kiko Continentino directs, and Jane Duboc appears as a guest. The set runs through Jobim’s “Água de Beber” and “Brigas Nunca Mais”, Menescal’s “O Barquinho” and Marcos Valle’s “Samba de Verão”, and closes with “Colibri”, a tribute to Lô Borges of the Clube da Esquina, who died in November 2025. The bossa nova canon played properly rather than as tourist wallpaper.
Friday 4 September, 9pm
Marvio Ciribelli — a tribute to Sergio Mendes
Bottle’s Bar, Beco das Garrafas, Copacabana · Price from the venue
The Beco das Garrafas is the alley where bossa nova was argued into existence in the late 1950s, and it still has a working club in it. Ciribelli plays a tribute to Sergio Mendes, a fellow son of Niterói, with Luis Lima Japão, Luisinho Sobral and Cadu Pontes. Worth going for the room as much as the music.
Friday 4 September
Clássicos do Reggae
Circo Voador, Lapa · Price from the venue
The Circo is where Lapa goes when it wants a roof. A reggae classics night, in the venue that has been the barometer of Rio’s live scene since the 1980s.
Saturday 5 September
Saturday 5 September, 3pm
Kyria Oliveira and Alexia Carpilovsky on Micélio
Paço Imperial, Praça Quinze de Novembro 48, Centro · Free
The artist and the curator and poet Alexia Carpilovsky discuss the research behind the exhibition Micélio, entre o fim e o começo de tudo. Oliveira spent time in Argentina and Peru with communities that still practise felting in natural wool. It is a craft kept alive largely by women. Moreover, it is almost absent from Brazil, where the climate never favoured sheep. An hour in an eighteenth-century palace, at no cost.
Monday 7 September: the holiday that closes Centro
Monday 7 September, ceremony from 8.15am, parade from 9.30am
Independence Day civic-military parade
Avenida Presidente Vargas, in front of the Palácio Duque de Caxias, Centro · Free
The one public holiday of Rio in September: Brazil marks 204 years of independence. The ceremony begins at 8.15am with the review of the troops. Then the symbolic flame arrives between 9 and 9.25. Finally, the parade itself starts at 9.30 and runs to about 11.30. Navy, Army and Air Force, plus public-security bodies, students and civil institutions. It is a national holiday: banks, offices and most shops are shut. Road closures in the centre run through to 3am on the Monday, so if you are heading to Rock in Rio the same evening, leave early and do not plan to drive through Centro.
From Wednesday 9 September
9 to 24 September, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 7pm
Nicole Musafir — Pra Quem Não Me Conhece
Casa de Cultura Laura Alvim, Ipanema · Price from the venue
This is a short run of a one-woman show. Musafir built it out of the diaries she has kept since she was six. Blocked creatively for years, she went through the box and put what she found on stage; pianist Ceci Nery accompanies, with musical direction by Leo Valor. In Portuguese, and personal enough to reward the effort if you can follow it.
Wednesday 9 September
Reading Club with João Silvério Trevisan
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free
The writer joins the CCBB reading club to talk about sexuality, memory and diversity in literature. Trevisan has been writing on those subjects since before it was safe to.
Saturday 12 September
Tasha e Tracie
Circo Voador, Lapa · Price from the venue
The São Paulo twins who turned a fashion and music blog into a rap career. One for a younger room than most of this list.
16 to 27 September: the first Semana de Arte do Rio
16 to 27 September
Semana de Arte do Rio — first edition
Museums, cultural centres, theatres and galleries across the city · Varies; much of it free
More than ten festivals come under one banner for the first time. In addition, there are exhibitions, street interventions and events in both public and private venues. Part of the Centro Cultural Justiça Federal programme falls inside it. If you have one week of Rio in September to give to the city’s art scene, make it this one.
Saturday 19 September
Feira das Yabás at the CCBB
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free entry; food paid
A samba circle with Marquinhos de Oswaldo Cruz alongside the cooking that gives the fair its name — feijoada, angu à baiana, roast meat. The Feira das Yabás is normally a Madureira institution; catching it in Centro is the easy version.
24 to 27 September
Mostra Violas Brasileiras: Da Raiz ao Contemporâneo
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free
Curated by Ivan Viela. The viola caipira is the instrument most foreigners never hear in Rio, because it belongs to the interior. Four days to correct that.
Late September
Wednesday 23 September
Malize — Baile da Saudade, live with band
Teatro Firjan SESI Centro · Price from the venue
The 27-year-old singer and producer from Rio’s Zona Norte performs the first single from his debut album. Alongside it, the venue screens the video that won backing from the Mosaico Rio 2026 fund. Both form part of the Mostra Firjan SESI. MPB as a foundation with everything else layered on top.
Saturday 26 September
Seal — 30 years
Qualistage, Barra da Tijuca · Price from the venue
The thirtieth-anniversary tour. A large, comfortable room and a set of songs most people in it will know by heart.
Opera and orchestras in Rio in September
September
Festival Oficina da Ópera
Theatro Municipal, Cinelândia, Centro · Price from the box office
The Municipal’s September strand brings Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Donizetti’s Il Campanello. The building alone justifies the ticket; it was modelled on the Paris Opera and finished in 1909.
Through September
21st RioHarpFestival and Música no Museu
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil and partner venues · Mostly free
Latin American harpists across Rio in September, alongside the long-running weekly Música no Museu series, which puts classical music into museums and churches at no charge. One of the best-value things in the city and almost unknown to new arrivals.
Free all month in Rio in September
Until 12 October
Vik Muniz — season extended
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free
Brazil’s most internationally recognised living visual artist, in the show that has been held over. If you see one exhibition this month, this is the one to see.
September
Amazônicas — Poéticas Femininas
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free
Sissa Aneleh curates work by women from the North of Brazil. The reading is decolonial, and it foregrounds Afro-indigenous ancestry. Furthermore, the show uses virtual and augmented-reality elements.
September
African Cinema showcase
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil cinemas, Centro · Free or low cost
Ten features and six contemporary shorts. Given how little African cinema reaches Brazilian screens, this is the rare chance.
Until late September
Coleção Ingá: Brasil Plural — final weeks
Centro Cultural Justiça Federal, Centro · Free
Around 200 works come from the Museu de História e Artes do Estado. Among them are Di Cavalcanti, Portinari, Goeldi and Mestre Guarany. The CCJF’s September programme also runs open-air cinema, short-film and Spanish-cinema seasons, choral concerts, flamenco, choro and indigenous music, literary workshops and two theatre productions — nearly all of it free.
Until 10 October, Tuesday to Saturday, midday to 7pm
Inefável Presença — nine painters from one Tijuca studio
Centro Cultural dos Correios, R. Visc. de Itaboraí 20, Centro · Free
Nine artists have shared a studio in Tijuca for seven years. Ayla de Oliveira curates the show, and also exhibits in it. The group formed around a life-drawing class at the UFRJ fine arts school in 2017 and kept meeting on Monday evenings. Figurative painting, unfashionable for a while, now finding buyers.
Planning your Rio in September
Where we have not printed a ticket price, the organisers did not publish one — check with the venue before you travel. Programmes at the CCBB, the Theatro Municipal and the CCJF change during Rio in September, so confirm on the day.
This guide to Rio in September runs monthly, and returns in October. If you run a venue, a gallery or a production in Rio and would like to be considered, write to the newsroom with the date, the time, the address and the ticket price. Those four things are what get an event into the list.
More on living here: our Rio de Janeiro coverage and Expats in Brazil.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
In depth
Read More from The Rio Times